I've only reported people I've susected of being trolls to the mods twice, but I'd do it again if I had a gut feeling that something about their posts was "not right". Intuition is just our subconscious putting together things our conscious mind doesn't notice.

But yeah, the best thing is to take it to the mods. I've never had a mod reply when I've reported a troll/thread, but since I've noticed that things are dealt with, I think we can safely say the mods deal with things and don't have time to reply. But your concerns are being heard if you do report someone/a thread.

I do remember 2 "trolls" who were eventually outed, and one in particular was just cruel in how she was attempting to manipulate emotions.

I did report one to a moderator, and not that long ago (well, within the last 12 months). The post just felt not right, but it wasn't until I was trying to type out my report to the mods that it hit me: the story, if true, was emotionally devastating to the OP, and yet the whole post was too well-written: beautiful metaphors; neat paragraphs; no run-on sentences. I think most people have a tendency to write poorly when emotionally wrought.

There was one possibility that could have explained it: it was a true incident, but had happened years ago. If the OP had said, "Now this happened years ago," instead of, "This happened last night," I probably would have given a pass because years of processing the incident would have made it coherent.

But those trolls! They are despicable.

Logged

I have enough lithium in my medicine cabinet to power three cars across a sizeable desert. Which makes me officially...Three Cars Crazy

Embellishing a story to prtect identification is completely different, IMO. As are declare hypothetical scenarios.

Yep. I think a lot of us turn Aunt Rosie in our stories into Uncle Fred or Cousin Sara simply to protect our identities.

As long as the facts are accurate, I think it's incredibly wise to camouflage descriptive details not germane to the story. And, as far as I know, that is specifically not discouraged on this forum at all -- and enough of us do it that it serves the purpose of keeping enraged relatives from discovering the forum and causing drama.

Embellishing a story to prtect identification is completely different, IMO. As are declare hypothetical scenarios.

Yep. I think a lot of us turn Aunt Rosie in our stories into Uncle Fred or Cousin Sara simply to protect our identities.

I know I've said many times that my EvilSib was male, and on other occasions said ES was female -- not to try to confuse anyone, but because he's a stinker and he'd love to cause drama by outing me on an Internet forum for talking smack about my family.

As long as the facts are accurate, I think it's incredibly wise to camouflage descriptive details not germane to the story. And, as far as I know, that is specifically not discouraged on this forum at all -- and enough of us do it that it serves the purpose of keeping enraged relatives from discovering the forum and causing drama.

I think it's not only okay to change a few details that don't affect the point of the story, I think it's preferable. Occasionally, I leave out or simplify something that just is irrelevant (e.g., I may just write "parents" or "sister" when in fact we're dealing with a step-parent or half-sibling, if it has no significance to the story). But more important is to change little details -- names, locations, sexes, dates, and the like -- to prevent identification. As others have noted, you don't want the people in the story to realize it's about them.

But besides that, if I'm writing about a story including, perhaps even primarily about, other people, I don't think it's nice to discuss them behind their backs without obscuring their identities and anything that could cause anyone reading to recognize the incident. So I will change more (unimportant) details when I'm writing about others.

That's not the point of this thread, though. I think we all know the difference between writing "Lulu served lemonade and pretzels at her Labor Day party," when in fact it was Rupert serving iced tea and potato chips at a Memorial Day party, and a troll post.

If I suspect someone is making things up with the intent to manipulate emotions I will report it to the mods. I saw something like this blow up on another board, causing a lot of negative consequences for the board. I want to protect ehell from things like this.

I also might (politely) direct some pointed questions at a poster whose story doesn't ring true. This gives them a chance to straighten some things out ...or to hang themselves.

If I suspect someone is making things up with the intent to manipulate emotions I will report it to the mods. I saw something like this blow up on another board, causing a lot of negative consequences for the board. I want to protect ehell from things like this.

I also might (politely) direct some pointed questions at a poster whose story doesn't ring true. This gives them a chance to straighten some things out ...or to hang themselves.

Yeah, that's how I look at things too. I'll probably report a thread if it seems obviously fake and is in the "I need a hug" folder. If it's just a normal thread with an outlandish story but nobody is getting emotionally involved, I'll usually just ignore it. There was a thread like that very recently in which I thought "How could the other poster possibly believe this?" But nobody was hurt by it, so no harm no foul

If I suspect someone is making things up with the intent to manipulate emotions I will report it to the mods. I saw something like this blow up on another board, causing a lot of negative consequences for the board. I want to protect ehell from things like this.

I also might (politely) direct some pointed questions at a poster whose story doesn't ring true. This gives them a chance to straighten some things out ...or to hang themselves.

Yeah, that's how I look at things too. I'll probably report a thread if it seems obviously fake and is in the "I need a hug" folder. If it's just a normal thread with an outlandish story but nobody is getting emotionally involved, I'll usually just ignore it. There was a thread like that very recently in which I thought "How could the other poster possibly believe this?" But nobody was hurt by it, so no harm no foul

I sometimes think that, but then I think about my own life and all of the things that have happened the last 4 months and I think anything is possible.

I often wonder about my posts in "I Need a Hug" because my friend on the phone last night told me "you are so lucky that I know you because girl I would not believe this stuff if I didn't" eek!

I haven't read the "Hug" folder much, so I'm not thinking of any particular poster/thread when I say this, including AntarcticEskimo, only people I know in real life. Some people just seem to have a lot of drama in their lives; and sometimes it's there because they've invited it in or made poor choices, which might not be obvious right away if we don't know the full backstory. Like if I told you all the problems my co-worker Emma is facing right now, it would sound like she really got the fuzzy end of the lollipop and the virtual hugs would probably flow freely, because people here are very compassionate. But then if you heard the backstory of how much of these problems are her own fault--Your car will break down and require expensive repairs if you don't maintain it properly! Why is that a shock every time?--some people might feel like they had been "duped" somehow. But if Emma were posting these problems herself, she honestly would not see them as her own fault--she would not be leaving out those details and "faking" on purpose, but some people might feel manipulated anyway. Or they might become frustrated when they saw that she refused to do anything to help herself, but rather dug herself in deeper and deeper and kept coming back here expecting sympathy (as she does IRL)--so in a sense she is "faking" asking for advice, because she's not going to take it.

I know the OP was talking more about people who completely make up/knowingly exaggerate stories, but I thought it might be interesting to consider that there could be other kinds of "faking" that can occur as well. In this case I would just stop following the thread and hope the person faded away quietly; but like IRL, new people could get sucked in by a drama queen and feed them sympathy. Is there anything one can do about this (in the forum, I mean), or am I being excessively hard-hearted here? I am truly curious and not trying to stir anything up or target anyone (or threadjack).